The two opening stanzas are missing in your transcript; their inclusion makes a lot more sense of the opening of the story. They go like this:

It was a manufacturer's van
That jogged along the road,
When, quite unnoticed by the man,
A brand-new box, all spick and span,
Fell backwards off his load.
If he had heard and stopped to look,
You never would have read this book.

The box, burst open by the fall,
Disclosed a Man inside,
Who sat up, wondering at all
He saw: he felt so very small,
The landscape looked so wide.
"Now who and what and where am I?"
He asked, but there was no reply.

My treasured copy of "Edward Buttoneye" was presented to my late Mother by her elder sister on her 11th birthday, 19th April 1912, and is in remarkably good condition for 97 years old. I remember it from my earliest childhood.